The Dawn of Remembered Time
by Tierfal
Summary: Light Yagami's metaphors were even worse when he was hungover and had just gotten laid. Light/L.
1. Love Stories

_Author's Note: This one's for Eltea, beautiful beta and partner in crime; and for MiaoShou, who rocks my socks right off._

_Er, and for Jenwryn, 'cause I love her, and Richelle, 'cause I love her, too. And for you, 'cause you're reading this._

_Also, I promise it gets funny enough to earn the 'humor' tag, just not as quickly as I__'d like__. XD_

* * *

I. Love Stories

Since the dawn of remembered time, man had been working diligently to preserve and present the greatest love stories of his kind: Romeo and Juliet; Odysseus and Penelope; Antony and Cleopatra; Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy; Heathcliff and Catherine; Othello and Desdemona; hell, _Westley and Buttercup_—and countless others that the overactive, overeducated mind could conjure at a thought.

Light Yagami could not recall a single legendary lover, however, who had blearily awoken next to his friend-cum-rival-cum-jailer and had immediately regretted having become such a lover at all.

He rather doubted any had also immediately regretted the choice to implement a Latin preposition.

Milky white skin that had been flushed in the half-light, that had been soft and smooth beneath his curious fingertips, that had been warm against his lips, stretched over jutting shoulder-blades. Last night's idol looked almost ill now, weak and small, nestled under the sheets with his incorrigible ink-hair splashed over the pillowcase.

Light's stomach clenched, threatening to convulse. Sure, Ryuzaki—Ryuzaki, L, whoever he was, whoever he chose to be—sure, he was beautiful. Sure, he was extraordinary. Sure, he was like nothing and no one Light had ever had the strange fortune to encounter, and sure, that was intoxicating as hell, hooking his mind and netting his heart in one smooth flick of the line. But he knew how to control himself. He knew how to watch—knew how to _watch_ instead of _moving_.

Or he had, until last night.

What had it even been? Where lay the last straw, the fissure that finally split the wall to send its scattered pieces tumbling?

Oh, _God_; his metaphors were even worse when he was hungover and had just gotten laid.

Why had they drunk themselves into that sweet, pleasant haze of inebriated misjudgment anyway? He slid his hands out from beneath the covers, trying not to make an audible rustle, and pressed their heels into his eye sockets, his pulse thrumming insistently in his temple. He couldn't remember. He was willing to bet it was Matsuda's fault. Why had his father let him drink? He knew what happened when Light drank; he'd been the one who'd retrieved Light at two in the morning from that one pathetic party with the cheap vodka, when Light had called from the bathroom, curled up between the shower and the toilet to which he'd just offered his dinner, pleading for an egress, knowing he'd receive a fifteen-minute car ride of stony silence.

His father had delivered; the gaudy traffic lights had seared his eyes. They'd sat side-by-side in the driveway for a long moment, his father's sturdy fingers clenched around the clutch.

"_You said I could call you,"_ Light had mumbled—_mewled_—when his stomach had settled enough to let him speak. _"If I ever needed to. That you wouldn't be mad."_

There had been a pause, and Light had feared for a heart-skipping moment that he'd miscalculated, and his father wouldn't speak—that this thick, blurry silence would go on forever.

"_Your mother said that,"_ Soichiro Yagami had told him quietly at last. _"I never said anything of the sort."_

Light had folded his arms tighter, hugging himself. _"You're disappointed."_

The word that haunted children's dreams; the word that smoldered with a potency and a persistence that the momentary blaze of anger could never match.

Two fingers of the free hand had pinched his father's nose below the bridge of the glasses. _"Yes, Light."_

"_It was just once. Just a party."_

A sigh. _"I know. And I am glad that you called instead of trying to get back on your own. But Light… You of all people should understand consequences."_

A new fear had fluttered in Light's chest, feathers spiraling into the pit of his unsteady stomach. _"You're not going to—"_

Soichiro had shaken his head slowly. _"You called me as your father, not as an officer of the law. No one's going to get turned in, at least not by me. But I want you to _think_ about this, Light. I want you to think about what you did and what that means. And I want you to think about the fact that as much as I may disagree with what you've done, I came when you called me, because I am first and foremost your father, with a duty to protect you in every way that I can."_

Light's throat had tightened considerably. _"Thanks, Dad," _he'd heard himself whisper.

Light opened his eyes, withdrawing his hands from over them. White sheets and ivory skin between them; black silk on the pillow; mahogany headboard; floral wallpaper. It was awfully picturesque for an _I told you so_.

…oh, _God_—if his father found out—him and the strange, strange angel at his side—

No one could know. That was it. That was the beginning and the end of it, no epilogue required. It had happened; it was over; end of story. That _had_ to be it.

And then Ryuzaki stirred, and Light pressed his face to the pillow.


	2. Elusive

_Author's Note: Sorry about a slightly late update... My gorgeous beta and I were writing a scene, and it was so crazily fascinating that we couldn__'t tear ourselves away. XD  
_

* * *

II. Elusive

L opened his eyes. He blinked, looking at the graceful slope of the pillow before him, and tried to determine why it was that he felt so oddly exposed.

Pausing, he attended the input of all of his nerves, and the ones on his back duly informed him that the cool sheets were bunched down around his waist.

…if his nerves were anything to go by, it wasn't just his back that was bare.

This was certainly an unusual set of circumstances. His head throbbed like a new wound, his blood squelched through his veins with difficulty, and his stomach churned sickly—which was a symptom that even veritable boatloads of sugar couldn't engender.

Tentatively, he raised his head, pushing himself up on unstable arms, his splayed hands dimpling the mattress, and looked at the other individual tucked between the pale sheets.

L wasn't much for swearing, or he would have let loose a string of expletives the likes of which the world had never…

Then again, he wasn't much for inexplicable bedmates, and there was evidently a first time for everything.

Inexplicable. Yes. That was it.

This couldn't be happening. There had to be another explanation, one that made an iota of sense, because _this_ explanation was far too ludicrous to be possible. To put it simply, bluntly, and dreadfully truthfully, there was not a lacy snowflake's chance in Hell that Light Yagami would sleep with L Lawliet.

There was a virtually endless list of reasons why such a contingency was completely out of the question, second among their number the incontrovertible fact that Light was an entirely upright human being; first and foremost that anyone as breathtakingly lovely as the young man lying next to him would never have to stoop to a slouching, sugar-gobbling one-man freak show for a night of sex.

If those things weren't true, nothing was, and the time-space continuum was summarily and irrevocably doomed.

It was too early in the morning for this variety of logical Möbius strip, and the thing was starting to look like a noose anyway.

Or a handcuff.

Repelling the thoughts seeking to infiltrate the fortress that was his mind, closing his ears to their soft sirens' voices, L took a deep breath and lay carefully on the bed again, letting his eyes slide shut.

It had been a nice dream, warm and sweet and quiet—and heady and wild and boundlessly, richly, immeasurably gratifying. Half-mad, half-scintillatingly clear.

It was a dream. Of course it was. Dreams he could dismiss.

He settled, the dark embracing him, enveloping his weakened limbs and delusional mind without discriminating, remarking, or passing judgment, in the way that sleep (and only sleep) always did.

He was woken again—no, not again; surely for the first time this morning—when the chain clinked and the sheets rustled. L didn't open his eyes. More fabric whispered as Light dressed, the chain and his belt buckle jingling in unison. L gave his companion ample time to have rendered himself adequately decent before sitting up and rubbing at his eyes, pushing his insistent hair out of them.

Light had donned last night's rumpled khakis and crimson sweater. His skin looked luscious, his disheveled hair delectable; and his wide eyes were enrapturing as he glanced up from his scrutiny of the sock drawer.

Eugh. _Socks_.

L supposed that even angels had their vices.

"Good morning, Light-kun," he said, striving not to notice his own nakedness.

"Good morning, Ryuzaki," Light replied, meeting L's eyes deliberately, presumably with the goal of propagating the same denial.

There was a pause. Light looked away. "Sleep well?" he managed.

"I don't recall," L murmured in response. "I was sleeping at the time."

Light made a faint, breathy noise that might, on a different day, have been something like a laugh.

L started to wet his lips with his tongue and then realized that that might not be the wisest course of action given its connotations. "Light-kun?" he prompted. "Might you do me a favor?"

Light dared to glance at him again. "Sure," he conceded, without so much as asking what category of favor it fit.

L paused, as tactfully as the circumstances would allow. "I seem," he noted, "to be missing my pants."

Meticulously meeting his eyes, Light swallowed. "Ah," he said, delicately. "Let me see what I can do."

L drew up his knees—taking care to keep the sheet over them—and took his thumbnail between his teeth as Light navigated around the edge of the bed, negotiating the chain and hunting the carpet for the absentee article more intently than the task probably required.

The pants proved elusive. L felt his face heating, slowly and steadily like a stove coil, and shifted uncomfortably as Light went down on all fours and peered under the bed.

"Here they are," he announced, incredibly calmly, his voice muffled by the mattress.

L was not feeling nearly brave enough to ask how, in the name of strawberries, sugar cubes, and all that was good, his pants had ended up halfway under the bed. Something told him that he very likely didn't want to know.

Neither was he feeling obstinate enough to try not to be impressed with Light's composure as the boy—for, oh, _God_, he was—straightened, holding L's jeans, the white cotton boxers tangled in them in a way that looked almost forlorn, and offered the twisted clothing to its owner with pink cheeks but steady hands.

"Thank you," L heard himself say as he took the bundle.

"You're welcome," Light told him.

L had always found the convention of the phrase slightly misleading. Literally, he was now permitted to request that Light seek out and return his pants to him at any time.

Although that arrangement did not sound at all disagreeable, given that it was based on a linguistic oddity, L doubted that Light would find it overly convincing.

Before L, through the pounding of his head, had time to figure out if he was even serious about this whole bizarre train of thought, Light had recommenced his search of the sock drawer, giving L the privacy to wriggle into his clothing again.

It unsettled him, thoroughly and profoundly, that he didn't remember taking that clothing off. L's mind was his greatest—and essentially _only_—weapon, and to be missing memories, to have lost some portion of his experience, was to forfeit his single source of power.

Sighing inwardly, he slipped off of the bed, still mindful of the chain, and started searching for his shirt.

He was unnerved, if not too terribly surprised, to discover it under the desk, all the way across the room.


	3. Order and Sanity

_Author's Note: Love and cookies to all reviewers; I promise to reply better when I__'m not shirking various duties and being a bad child. Enjoy. x)  
_

* * *

III. Order and Sanity

Socks were important. Socks could tell you a lot about a person—their color, their material, hell, their _cleanliness_; all were indicative of the character of their wearer.

Maybe that was why Ryuzaki was the wildest enigma since the Loch Ness Monster had been spotted in the Bermuda Triangle—because he had no damn _socks_.

Truth be told, however, Light really couldn't care less whether his socks were going to be black or white on this particular Apocalyptic morning. It was just that he needed something to do other than stand there watching Ryuzaki dress.

He tried to clench his fingers around the edge of the drawer as inconspicuously as possible. _Watching Ryuzaki dress_. Was there a more rewarding act of partially-condoned voyeurism in the wide and twisted world?

Well, there was watching Ryuzaki _un_dress. But if he started thinking like that, started letting himself imagine, started picking out the details of the vivid picture threatening to swim into focus in his head, he would lose his mind, and that would be a bit of a waste.

He looked at his knuckles where their pale peaks rose from the drawer front. They didn't seem to be inclined to talk about it, either of them. Rather, they seemed to be inclined to tiptoe around it and avoid even the minutest mention of what had, unequivocally and not-quite-regrettably, taken place the night before. It was like walking on eggshells—or perhaps the shards of broken lightbulbs.

Struggling not to cringe, Light snatched a pair of white socks after all and sat down on the bed to tug them on, the chain thrumming gently through the air between them.

The chain. It was because of that damn chain, linking them, tangling them, forcing their personal bubbles to collide and then merge into this ungodly opalescent union, this uneasy collaboration, this ineffable tension that darted about his ears like a mosquito with a vengeance. It was because of the chain. It had nothing to do with his sentiments and susceptibilities, nothing to do with the things he'd dreamed without ever hoping, nothing to do with Ryuzaki's damp hair in his tremendous storm-cloud eyes.

Certainly none of that.

He laced his shoes, the bows perfectly centered, the loops even on either side. Order. That was what he needed, what the world needed, what was missing here. Order, and sanity.

Ryuzaki was waiting for him, clothed again, looking no more or less unkempt than usual, and Light followed him out into the central meeting room, with its striped couches and rows of computer screens—dark now as they waited, humming, to be fully roused back into life.

As Ryuzaki attended to the intricate business of breakfast, as the plain black coffee in his plain black mug sacrificed its steam to the air about them, as the clock ticked with gusto, Light adjusted the pages of the newspaper spread before him to give the impression that he was reading it. He even went so far as to send his eyes skimming over the lines, though of course his mind was elsewhere.

Namely, in the Realm of God-Help-Us.

It had happened. That was the basic certainty. It had happened, in a strange, unprecedented explosion-collision of two independent entities; in a crushing of skin on skin; in a shimmering of the trails left by exploratory tongues, and it couldn't be reneged now. And the fact that they refused to discuss it (not that Light would, in a thousand lifetimes, have begun that conversation) indicated, quite succinctly, that it was never going to happen again.

Ulcerous disappointment nibbled at his stomach lining. Of course he didn't want it to happen again. Of course he didn't want to stumble towards the warm, bleary haze of sleep with his arms curled almost protectively around the man perched on the chair opposite his. Of course he didn't want that incorrigible hair tickling at his eyelids, long-fingered hands clenched loosely where they rested against Light's collarbone.

His inward smile was bitterer by far than the unmitigated coffee surrendering its warmth to the air.

_Why would he want that?_

It was to be expected. If the world's greatest detective was to fall in l—was to have a rela—was to… develop… an affinity for someone, it wouldn't be some uppity _kid_ who criticized all his habits and tried to undermine his theories.

Besides, if Ryuzaki didn't still harbor suspicions that Light was Kira, there wouldn't be a silver chain coiled on the tabletop.

What it came down to was that he wished he could remember it better, because _it_ was an isolated incident.

"Light-kun?" Ryuzaki prompted.

Light glanced up and moved automatically to pass the sugar.

"Do you remember how it was that we came to be inebriated last night?"

That stopped his hand halfway to the sugar bowl. He stared at Ryuzaki, the primary lingual centers of his brain boycotting coherency all at once. He suspected a conspiracy, or at least a union strike.

Apparently they _were_ talking about it.

"I don't recall consuming anything unusual," Ryuzaki was musing, thumb at his lips. "Do you?"

Oh, God, the things Light wanted to do to that thumb.

Light swallowed, something of a trial at this juncture. "I don't remember," he coughed up on the third attempt.

Ryuzaki nodded thoughtfully. "My recollections are hazy at best." Did he mean the process of getting drunk, or the entire—thing? The entire night? The entire—experience?

Light needed to quit now before his precipitously-warming face set him on fire.

"Alcohol would have burned out of a cake," Ryuzaki was musing, largely to himself. "We would have tasted it in tea." Absently, he pushed his plate away with one hand and commenced licking crumbs from the fingertips of the other.

Light was beginning to wonder when emergency rescue crews were going to notice his face and try to extinguish him.

"Maybe it'll come to us," he suggested, his voice sounding surprisingly level. He picked up his coffee mug, mentally gauged its contents against cold motor oil, and knocked half of it back in a single gulp despite the frightening similarities, shuddering heavily as it oozed down his throat. "You want to get back to business?"

It was probably the whole post-one-night-stand thing, but everything sounded like a double-entendre today.

Ryuzaki blinked at him placidly. "I am ready when you are," he announced.

Light cringed.


	4. Too Much Trouble

_Author's Note: Personally, I'm a sucker for the pomegranate lemonade._

_I mean… what?_

* * *

IV. Too Much Trouble

L touched the computer mouse, and the screen flickered into life. A spreadsheet shared the space with a police file, and L immediately rediscovered the fantastic progress they'd made the evening before. Droplets of thought-supposition-memory beginning to coalesce, he turned slowly to Light.

"Did we start making toasts?" he inquired.

Light's face went white, and then pink, and then faintly greenish. Incredibly enough, the rainbow effect was somehow flattering.

Then again, one of L Lawliet's less-publicized theories was that Light Yagami was physically incapable of being unattractive. 

Light rubbed his face with both hands, and the chain swung like a pendulum.  "Yeah," he confirmed unsteadily.  "Matsuda—"  It figured.  "—went out and came back with enough booze to drown a dolphin—"

Light-kun's figurative abilities seemed to be somewhat impaired by his hangover.

"—and you had about six of those really sweet alcopop things he brought, the strawberry flavor—"

That explained a great deal.

"—and where the _hell_ was my dad?  He knows how I get—"

There was an edge of panic to Light's voice now.  L wanted to reach out and pat the boy's shoulder, but he imagined that such a gesture would hurt things more than help them.

"Well," he murmured, "Light-kun can take some comfort from the fact that Yagami-san is not here_ now_."

Light made a forlorn noise into his palms.  His shoulders rose and fell with a few deep breaths, and then he looked up, his complexion having settled on "slightly pale," the dodgy look gone from his eyes.

"I think I'd like to take a shower now," he decided, "if it's not too much trouble."

"Certainly not," L conceded, attempting hesitantly at a smile.  "It might be wise of us to wash the sheets as well."

So much for normalizing Light's color; his cheeks abruptly flared a vibrant red again. Apparently L had crossed one of the many invisible lines that separated safe from shameful in Light Yagami's mind.

That was the part that ached, he thought, standing quietly by as Light rifled through the dresser for an unwrinkled shirt—the fact that Light was ashamed.

It wasn't that he was surprised, L supposed; it wasn't as though most people would leap into bed with him at a moment's notice, and it wasn't like Light had any reason to be an exception.  It was just that… he'd thought that they had something.  He'd thought that the fleeting physical connection merely reinforced the mental and emotional links already in place, that it had _meant_ something, because it was something they both wanted and felt and believed in, if only for a moment.  If only for a night.

Well, he was shameful, then.  He should be getting accustomed to the idea by now.

Light folded his prospective raiment and held it to his chest, looking at the bed.

"So," he said.

L tugged on the comforter and the blanket, which had long since been kicked to the foot of the mattress, and dropped them to the floor.  Making a conscious effort not to think about what he was doing—which was by nature and definition impossible—he peeled off the topmost sheet and then its mattress-hugging counterpart.  Balling them up in his arms, he turned to Light, contemplating the leftovers.

"Do you think we can leave the pillowcases?" he inquired.

Light ran a hand through his hair, encountered one of the tangles L had lately been admiring, and quickly became ensnared.  Fighting his bangs for possession of his fingers, Light spoke around a wince.  "What if someone asks why we have no sheets?"

L smiled thinly.  "Obviously, Light-kun," he explained, "I spilled ice cream while you were trying to sleep. It wouldn't be the first time."

Light returned the smile slightly weakly, and L realized, with no small amount of chagrined resignation, that he wanted very much to spill ice cream on _Light-kun_.

And lick it off, of course.

He sighed inwardly.  He really wasn't making this any easier for either of them.

Light's frequent showers had always been something of an exercise in awkwardness avoidance, but this particular specimen took the cake—so to speak.  L was about ninety-six percent sure he'd never in his life encountered a more durable silence.  Howitzer tanks and battering rams would have been woefully inadequate to shatter this one.

Then again, it was probably a good thing that he didn't have to try to hold up a conversation while being assailed by mental images of Light lathering himself, basking in the hissing stream from the showerhead, deft hand sliding over smooth skin, his head tilted back, his eyelids fluttering, his lips slightly parted—

L fought to think of the most unarousing thing in the vast reaches of the universe.  The idea of the task force's prospective suspicions, while intimidating, only underscored the thrill of secrecy, so that was out.  The surreptitious maneuvers that would prove necessary to maintain that secret would foster an inevitable sort of solidarity, and the thought of the building's laundry staff's whispers just tickled more.  The evidence was proof.  _Yes, we did.  Yes, he wanted to._

The full stop that completed that sentence, however, was sobering enough.

Plucking idly at the rivet that joined the cuff to the chain, L examined the toothbrushes in the stand on the counter.  It was going to be a tough day.

It got a great deal tougher when they stepped out of the bedroom, Light still toweling at his hair, to find Quillish waiting.

L was struck with a sudden and potent wave of buyer's remorse regarding the extremely precise security cameras he'd had installed throughout the central room.  If the setup had gone according to his stipulations, they had afforded one Watari a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of all the fumbling flirtation, of every clumsy kiss that had played out over the coffee table the night before.  It would require a truly impressive quantity of naïveté not to be able to infer the rest.

Quillish proffered the folder tucked under his arm, and L focused on it, knowing that direct eye contact would kill him instantaneously, his face warming again with incredible speed.  At this rate, he could start using his forehead as a hotplate. That could be nice.

"Ryuzaki?" Quillish remarked, ostensibly unconcerned.  "May I talk to you for a moment?"

_No, _L thought frantically.  _You most certainly may not._

"Of course," he mumbled.

Light smiled, slightly bashfully.  It was an utterly adorable expression.

"I'll stand in the corner and put my hands over my ears," he offered.  It sounded facetious, but all three of them were quite aware that it was the closest thing available to actual privacy.

"Thank you, Light-kun," L murmured, feeling sicker now than he had when he'd first awoken.

When Light was standing safely at the length of the chain, index fingers in his ears, his wet hair dripping dark spots onto the collar of his shirt, Quillish Wammy turned to L.

"Did you?" he inquired, both of them understanding what the deliberate ambiguity indicated.

L considered his choices.  They appeared to be _Option A:_ Lie, be caught immediately, and suffer through a lecture; _Option B:_ Equivocate, be understood immediately, and suffer through a lecture; and _Option C:_ Admit it, be believed immediately, and suffer through (shockingly enough) a lecture.

Things did not look good for our hero.  There was, for once, a hundred-percent probability of something, and that was that L was not going to get out of his unscathed.

Or at least un-lectured.

"Hm," L said.

It wasn't much, but his options, as he had established, were rather limited and lecture-filled.

Quillish winced.  "Did you at _least _use protection?" he prompted.

L placed both hands over his face and arranged them to satisfaction.  "I did not exactly plan to get extremely drunk, abandon the remotest semblance of inhibitions, and leap into bed with my closest colleague, Watari-san," he replied, not without difficulty.

"So you didn't," Quillish concluded.

"I don't even know how such things _work_, but for the basic conceptual principle—"  His face was going to ignite his palms any second now.  Auto-cremation.  It would be all the rage.

"So you didn't," Quillish repeated.

Quillish looked at Light, who was humming to himself a little.  His shirt was sticking to the small of his back.  L wanted to dip him in frosting, tuck a cool slice of strawberry between those warm lips—

"L," Quillish said quietly, "I don't want to see him hurt you."

L gave him an aspartame smile.  "I doubt he'll bother," he replied.

Comprehension sparked in Quillish's preternaturally perceptive eyes, and all the accusation melted from them.

"Like that, then?" he asked, softly now.

L shrugged.  "I don't blame him."

Quillish frowned.  "Perhaps you should."  Before L could respond, he raised a preemptive hand.  "I'll bring cake," he promised.

Finally, things were looking up.


	5. Surprisingly Unsurprising

_Author's Note: Any remotely merciful human being would have kept Matsuda way the hell out of this fic._

_Fortunately, I'm a sadist._

_Also, I still love you all and am endlessly appreciative, but I thought you might prefer me getting the chapter up to me replying insipidly to your wonderful reviews. XD I am hugging you in my mind!_

* * *

V. Surprisingly Unsurprising

The door fell shut behind Watari, and, removing his fingertips from their berths near his eardrums, Light turned to Ryuzaki. A single glance at the twist of the man's lips seemed to confirm his worst suspicions.

"Was that _The Talk_?" he asked before he could stop himself.

Ryuzaki smiled humorlessly. The expression was unfamiliar and terrifying. "I am twenty-five years old, Light-kun," he noted calmly.

He was, wasn't he? _Christ_.

"I am hardly in need of The Talk," Ryuzaki assured him.

_Light, what the hell are you doing?_

He pushed damp hair out of his eyes. "Guess we should get back to work, th—"

"Good morning, sunshines!" Matsuda sang, stretching both arms above his head as he sauntered in to join them, the other members of the task force trailing. Matsuda's tie was slightly askew, and he hadn't ironed his shirt, but his grin was as indomitable as ever. "I've never taken so much Advil in my life," he informed them cheerily, "and I still feel like my head's going to crack open and splatter my brains on the floor!"

"Oh, but they just washed the floor," Light retorted, hoping he sounded dismissive instead of terrified. How much did Matsuda remem—

"Look at you two," the incorrigible officer remarked, clicking his tongue, arms akimbo. "And you were so cozy last night!"

Light was going to kill him. Light was going to strangle him with his bare hands. He just had to lift those hands, which were tingling at his sides as he tried and failed to work his mouth.

"I mean, Ryuzaki, you had your head in his lap—"

Light's unstable stomach flipped. He remembered that perfectly through the haze—remembered the helpless grin and the guilty glee in the wide gray eyes; remembered the thick hair tickling right through his khakis, softer than down feathers, than brushed silk, than the last threads of a fading dream—

"I can't be the only one who saw _that_," Matsuda was scoffing.

"The world is not so kind, Matsuda-san," Ryuzaki agreed crisply, a frighteningly foreign bitterness playing in those eyes now. Light turned to the others, who, though none among them had lingered as long as Matsuda, were all nursing hangovers of various severities, and saw the dreaded light of understanding in their bleary eyes.

Worse, however, was the dawning of it in his father's face—his father, who had opted to take his night off at home instead, permitting the whole wretched pageant to unfurl.

"Watari-san is attending to breakfast," Ryuzaki announced into the weighty silence. "I suggest we get things moving before he returns."

Light's father raised his eyebrows. "Excellent," he decided. Before Light could foster any delusions of relief, Soichiro followed up with, "Light, can I speak to you for a moment?"

Sympathizing suddenly with Kira's victims trudging to their mysterious gallows, Light walked numbly to his father's side. They were just words. Just "disappointed"s and "shame on you"s. Just needles in his knife wounds. He'd live to bleed another day.

Before Soichiro could speak, Ryuzaki, with a characteristic lack of explanation, sat down on the nearest ottoman and drew his knees up to his chest. He looked at Light's father.

"Yagami-san," he said, "much as I usually support your methods for parenting as well as for policing, before you tear into Light-kun too fervently, I would like to state, simply for your consideration, that it most certainly takes two to tango."

There was a pause of epic proportions. Ryuzaki touched his thumb thoughtfully to his lips, and the only other movement in the room was a whole lot of blinking on the part of everyone else.

Predictably enough, Matsuda shattered the quiescence with an exultant cry that sounded only slightly strained. "Who wants to go see how Watari's doing with breakfast?" he crowed.

Explosive agreements burst from the others, who chased him eagerly out the door.

"Is there any more Advil, Matsu?" Mogi was asking as the door in question fell shut behind them. "Or did you chug them _all_?"

Soichiro Yagami, Chief Director of the Japanese police, and Ryuzaki-L, the World's Greatest Detective, stared each other down, the latter calmly, the former in utter disbelief.

Ryuzaki's thumb nail wandered between his teeth. "Yagami-san may address his son now," he decided, gathering himself to his sockless feet and sidling to the end of the chain, where he pressed his hands over his ears and obligingly averted his eyes.

Light's father watched Ryuzaki, whose toes were curling and uncurling on the linoleum, for a thirty second-eternity before he spoke.

"Do you love him?" he asked quietly.

"Wh—_what_?" Light sputtered.

Soichiro folded his arms across his chest, meeting Light's eyes. "Do you love him, or not?"

Light looked back, his heartbeat singing in his ears with an extremely distracting enthusiasm. "Yes," his voice said. "I do."

His father was surprisingly unsurprised. "Then you should tell him so," he concluded equably.

Light balked. "_Tell_ him?" he repeated. "Tell _him_? Dad, he's—he's _L_!"

"And you're Light," his father replied, though Light didn't know what that had to do with anything. Soichiro saw his son's bewilderment and sighed. "Light, I'll be the first to admit that I can't keep track of the thoughts that go through that boy's head—or yours, for that matter—but I do think that it's safe to say he wouldn't have jumped into bed with you if he wasn't fond of you to start with."

Light hid his face in his hands and made a noise that sounded like a resigned squeak even to his own ears.

His father laid a hand on his shoulder, which Light assumed was meant to be encouraging. "Listen," he said. "I've seen the way you two work together. I'm stunned regularly that you survive being chained together twenty-four hours a day. And I've lost count of the times you've both been so passionate about something that it's devolved into a fight. You know what that says to me, Light? It says that you're two people cut from the same crazy, incomprehensible cloth. Obviously, it's up to you, and it'll always be up to you, but I think that two people like that should stick together, because they're sure as hell not going to find anyone else like them in the rest of this ridiculous world. They don't make them like the two of you very often. You understand each other. You can _keep up_ with each other, which is more than any of the rest of us can do. If you've been lucky enough to fall in love with each other, too, then—well, take it when you've got it, Light. This sort of thing doesn't come around twice."

Light stared at his father, peeking through his fingers. "Aren't you the least bit concerned," he managed, "that your only son just turned out to be a flaming homosexual?"

Soichiro slapped his forehead resonantly.


	6. The Other Thing

_Author's Note: AS IN RICHARD III. Get with it. Honestly. Seriously._

_(…it's not you; it's me.)_

_Happy Halloween!!!! 8D And happy birthday, MiaoShou! :D Er, and L. :P_

_Eltea and I are going to go trick-or-treating and fangirling now. D_

* * *

VI. The Other Thing

Distantly, L heard the door slam. He turned, lowering his hands from over his ears, to find that Watari had returned, Matsuda and the others at his heels, and that Light was looking at him, his complexion colorfully muddled again.

Without a word, Watari caught L's eye and hefted the large pink box in his hands meaningfully. Grinning despite himself, L reveled in the first surge of optimism he'd felt all day.

Cake tended to have that effect on him.

Matsuda held a prize of his own. "We have donuts!" he announced.

"And cake," L murmured, making a beeline for the table where Watari had set it down.

"And donuts," Matsuda maintained.

"And cake," L countered.

"I think it's safe to say," Soichiro remarked, taking Matsuda's burden and setting it on the table as well, "that we have both donuts _and_ cake."

"Fair enough," Matsuda sighed.

L might have contributed, but Watari had purchased paper plates and plastic forks, avoiding a waiting period, which meant that there was already enough cake in L's mouth to preclude speech.

He was a wise one, Quillish Wammy.

As the others swarmed upon the donuts, L glanced at Light-kun, who was not partaking in the wonders of the pastries. Soichiro was either patting the boy's shoulder or pushing him forward—or perhaps both at once.

Light steeled himself visibly and approached, putting on a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. Blessed as they were individually, that smile and those eyes were even lovelier when they met.

"Can I talk to you for a minute, Ryuzaki?" Light asked pleasantly.

Comically—or what would have been comically in other circumstances, such as those of a mediocre television sitcom or, at the least, circumstances involving someone _else_—the room went silent, and all eyes in it focused on the two of them. A survey of L's peripheral vision confirmed that, yes, Matsuda did have a donut halfway to his mouth; and no, nothing that could distract him from a donut would be easily forgotten.

L set his cake plate down on the corner of the table. Everyone in the room knew to expect a wrath more fearsome even than Kira's if they touched it, but L hoped that Light was nonetheless aware what it meant to be a higher priority than cake. There weren't many things in the world that were, and the _people_ he could count on one hand.

Anticipating a rather different result than that of the similar maneuver the previous night, he followed Light into the bedroom and pulled the door quietly to behind them.

Light opened his mouth, shut it, and put his hands in his pockets, looking blankly at the floor.

"_L_ and _Light_?" Matsuda piped up, sounding as though he had succumbed to the temptation of the donut at last and was speaking through it.

"There's nothing wrong with that," Soichiro said immediately.

"At least they can _get_ laid, Matsu," Aizawa muttered.

L choked on the chuckle bubbling in his throat and started coughing. Cringing, Light pounded him on the back.

"I didn't say there was anything wrong with it," Matsuda retorted, sounding offended. "And I can get laid anytime I _want_, thank you."

Mogi and Aizawa cleared their throats tactfully.

"What I was _going_ to say," Matsuda added just as L, leaning on Light's arm, regained his breath, "is that that's kind of hot."

The disbelieving silence lasted eons.

L stared at Light, who was staring back at him with commensurate incredulity.

"That's a little like what I meant to say," Light whispered.

L felt his eyes widen and was powerless to stop them. Light's hands under his elbow were much too warm.

"You… think we're kind of hot, Light-kun?" he hazarded.

Light paused. "Well… yeah. But I think that's kind of… _because_ of… the other thing."

L blinked. "The other thing?" he prompted, hesitantly.

Light's grip on his arm tightened marginally. "The, ah, 'I love you' thing," he said.

L stared at him.

Light blushed.

L stared at him a little more, and then a little more for good measure. He imagined he could do with some good measurement, given that his heart-rate and his blood pressure had both just skyrocketed into the stratosphere.

"That… thing?" he heard his voice ask slowly.

Light nodded, somewhat avidly.

"Is… that… thing… genuine?" L managed.

Light nodded again, clutched at L's forearm, realized that he was clutching at L's forearm, and took it gently in both hands instead.

L searched honeyed eyes for a sign—for the laughter at the brilliant joke; for the grim determination behind the lie; for the sadistic amusement spurred by the betrayal—there had to be something. There wasn't any other reason…

"I would I knew thy heart," he whispered, because more parts of him than he would have liked to admit knew that Light would know.

Light smiled weakly. "I'm no Richard, Ryuzaki," he said.

L set a faintly-trembling hand over the pair of Light's that rested on his arm. "I want to believe you," he replied quietly.

Light's elegant fingers rose to touch his face, softly, tentatively, as if to ensure its reality. "I'll see what I can do about that," he promised.

L supposed he should have seen it coming, but then, he wasn't exactly complaining when, having gotten the last word as usual, Light pulled him in for a full, warm, desperate, and somehow innocent kiss.

He wasn't complaining when Light's fingers twined themselves in his hair, either, or when Light's free hand settled at his waist, or when Light murmured contentedly as L ran his fingernail up the nape of the boy's neck and into _his_ hair, damp as it still was—

"They've been in there a while," Matsuda remarked worriedly—and drastically audibly.

"Will you get your mind out of the _gutter_?" Aizawa groaned.

"Matsuda," Soichiro put in, "if they were doing what you think they're doing, we'd hear it."

The noise that followed sounded suspiciously like Matsuda spitting out a mouthful of coffee.

The noise that followed _that_ sounded suspiciously like Soichiro Yagami laughing quietly.

A knuckle brushing his cheek reminded L that he'd been doing something before the various distractions arose. He smiled shyly at Light, who grinned back.

"Did you want to finish your cake?" Light asked.

Good God. The boy really _did_ love him.

* * *

_A/N: GO READ "ALIVE" BY ALIENABC'S _RIGHT NOW_. I knew exactly what was going to happen in the last chapter, and I was still reading too fast to beta properly. GO NOW, I said. I don't care what else you have to do. :P_


	7. Epilogue: Excellent Cake

_Author's Note: Thanks so much, guys. :) Hope you had as much fun as I did! I wish you all cake and strawberries.  
_

* * *

VII. Epilogue: Excellent Cake

L—the moniker had taken some getting used to, but Light was growing progressively fonder of it as he went along—extended his hand towards the doorbell and then lowered it.

"I am having second thoughts, Light-kun," he announced.

"We're standing on the doorstep," Light reminded him. "It's too late for second thoughts."

L's thumb rose to his lips. "How about third thoughts?" he asked. "Is it too late for those?"

"Yes," Light replied. Entirely unnecessarily given its per-custom wildness, he ruffled L's hair. "Don't worry; she'll love you."

L didn't look convinced. "How can you be so sure?"

Light reached for the doorbell and pushed it. "Because you are, at least ostensibly, helpless and socially-crippled. She's a sucker for stuff like that."

As the echoes of the doorbell's cheerful chirruping rang through the foyer, L glanced at him, mildly scandalized.

"Was that meant to be some sort of backhanded compliment, Light-kun?" he inquired.

Light grinned. "Of course not," he replied. "It was a perfectly front-handed compliment."

Before L had time to work up a proper glare through his bangs, the door opened to reveal Light's mother in all her glowing, hostess-ready glory.

Sachiko Yagami literally clapped her hands. "You must be Ryuzaki," she concluded gleefully. "Come in; come in; come in; Light said you love cake; is white with strawberries all right?"

"That sounds wonderful, Yagami-san," L murmured, shuffling in obediently before Light had to resort to prodding his lower back. "Strawberries are my favorite."

Light was well-aware of that. In fact, he'd lost count of the times he'd used little plastic containers of them as bribes. In further fact, it had taken three of them to convince L to come and have dinner with his family on this particular evening.

When they moved into the dining room, Sayu and his father were already seated—as he'd recommended that they should be to avoid as much awkwardness as possible—and the food was on the table.

"Are we late?" L asked, slightly startled.

"No, no," Light's mother sang. "We're just… _ready_…"

L looked to Light, a volume's worth of _Are they really that desperate to stop you from being single?_ in the amused quirk of his eyebrow.

Light shrugged, trying not to grin.

His strategy (for of course there was a strategy; this was _him_, after all) was to lure his raven-haired maverick into a sense of security—and to enforce, gently but unremittingly, that that security was genuine. That this house was a home, and that it was a home open to any heart that wanted to settle in it. That Light's life and family both had space and warmth enough to hold another mastermind.

"So you're a detective?" Sayu piped up almost before L had managed to sit down—certainly before he'd had time to gather his knees to his chest and wrap an arm around them, the other hand free to wield his fork.

"I am," L confirmed. "I've been working with Light-kun and your father to apprehend Kira for a while now."

"That's so exciting!" Sayu enthused, eyes glowing. "Have you made any progress? Are you close? Do you think you'll get 'im?"

L shot Light a bemused look. "Some; I suppose; and I certainly hope so," he answered patiently.

Light got the feeling that L was, one way or another, accustomed to inquisitive children.

Then again, the man had had some practice putting up with _him_, too.

"So what's it like?" Sayu prompted eagerly. "What do you do as a detective?"

L considered the question. "I eat a lot of cake," he decided.

Light's father raised his eyebrows at his daughter. "Why don't you ask Ryuzaki about something other than his work?" he inquired.

Sayu flashed a luminous grin. "Well, his personal life involves Light, his private life is private, and if he's working on the Kira case, his public life probably isn't much to speak of. So really, that's all there is to ask."

Gray eyes dancing, L turned to Light. "I thought you said that you were smarter than your sister, Light-kun," he noted blithely.

Sayu beamed.

—

The night breathed over Light's face, cool and playful, as they skipped down the steps and started back towards the car. Light couldn't help but smile.

"Well?" he prompted. "What do you think?"

L gave it a moment. "That was excellent cake," he declared at last.

Light disheveled his hair again. "I meant about my _family_, L."

A mischievous smile toyed with lips he would have claimed right then if he hadn't wanted an answer first. "Ah, them," L remarked idly. "Well, I believe it is fair to say that, as none of them attempted to deter me from my madness, they must at the least be resigned to me."

"Better," Light informed him. "Sayu took me aside just before we were leaving to tell me that you're almost as cool as Misa Misa."

L's eyes widened considerably. "I should hate for Amane-san to feel that she has been supplanted," he murmured.

Light laughed and caught L's hand, thrilling even now at the curl of the familiar fingers around his. "Well, what are we going to do with the rest of the evening?" he inquired, feeling as though his heart would swell enough to break through his ribcage any second now. "The night's barely started."

L raised his hand to touch it to his lips, taking Light's with him. He blinked at his unprotesting captive audience with perfect innocence.

"I can think of a few things," he announced.

Light liked the sound of that.


End file.
